LSA Extraction, DXM Extraction, General Ergot Extraction, and How to make Hash Oil
This will be a growing compilation. As more information becomes available it will be posted.
What you do with this information and any consequences derived from your actions LWS is not liable for, nor are the authors of these texts.
Lysergic Acid Amide extraction from HBWR and Morning Glory Seeds
Spoiler for Polar/non-polar solvent method:The method is very simple, requires nothing you can't buy easily and legally, and it's not very expensive. There are refinements galore to this, and I might try them in order to purify this stuff, but the chemicals aren't as available, and it requires things like pH paper, which I don't know how to get. Maybe I can get some anyway. I'll see.
First of all, you need either (a) a lot of morning glory seeds or (b) some Hawaiian Baby Woodrose Seeds (HBWR). You also need petroleum ether, which is a petroleum refining byproduct, and some high proof drinkable ethanol.
I'll explain the theory as I understand it so that you can understand the flexibility in this recipe.
There are two kinds of solvents, polar and nonpolar. Generally, the good stuff in seeds is polar soluble, and the bad stuff is nonpolar soluble.
So the idea is to first make a nonpolar solution, which of course means that you take a nonpolar solvent and soak the ground up seeds in it. The result is a solution of garbage from the seeds and the nonpolar solvent. Petroleum is a nonpolar solvent, so it will function in this capacity. The down side is that petroleum is poisonous, so you don't want to drink it. The good news is that petroleum is extremely volatile, so it evaporates quickly and cleanly. So the first stage is to soak the ground up seeds in petroleum ether for a few days, and then filter the resulting cloudy solution through some coffee filters, throw away the solution, and keep the seed mush. The seed mush consists of nondisolved LSA's, fiber, and the remaining solution that didn't drip through the filter. This part can be iterated to get more and more garbage out of the mush. The final time, let the seed mush dry thoroughly so that the petroleum evaporates so that you don't have any poison in there.
After the seed mush dries, the nest stage is to make a polar solution, which separates the alkaloids (the LSA) from the fiber of the seeds. This is done with alcohol. There are other polar solvents, but again, the key is to have one which easily evaporates, one which will not destroy the LSA's, and one which is not poisonous. Ethanol serves this purpose. Methanol will also work, but methanol causes blindness, so if you use methanol, make damn sure it's all evaporated before consuming the product. In some states ethanol is illegal, and California is such a state. In that case, using methanol is probably the way to go. Also keep in mind that there is such thing as denatured ethanol, which is ethanol which has been intentionally poisoned so that it is undrinkable.
The reason for doing this is that drinkable ethanol is taxable under the Tobacco Alcohol and Firearms people, and denatured ethanol has uses in chemistry and cleaning. The point is that you should under no circumstances use denatured ethanol because it will make you sick or kill you or cause cancer or all three. So, make an alcohol solution of the seeds. Then filter the solution through filter paper, like before, except this time keep the liquid in a jar. Repeat this step 3 or 4 times, always keeping the liquid. When you've exhausted the seeds, throw them away. The liquid you have should be yellow and smelly. Put this in a shallow flat tray or pan or large bowl, and let it evaporate in a dark dry place for a day or two, or until there is no liquid. The pan should have a yellowish scum residue. That's the LSA gunk. Scrape that up with a razor blade or credit card or whatever works. It'll be sticky and gummy, and once it's all scraped up it will look dark brown.
That's pretty much all there is to it. You can take this several steps further to get a more pure product. That would be to alternately make an acid solution and base salts from the LSA's, which would eventually leave you with a very pure white powder. This requires much more effort, and wastes some of the product, and the only reason for doing it would be to remove more garbage, but the amount of garbage left in the brown gunk is insignificant.
Once you have this stuff as pure as you want it, you can ingest it in your favorite form. You can either swallow it as a lump, put it into a gelatin capsule, drink the ethanol solution, or dissolve it in some cool-aid. I recommend either capsules or swallow the lump if you can handle the taste.
Other notes: Petroleum ether is in Naptha, which is available in hardware stores. That's what I've used, and it works fine. [However, see this warning about Naptha] Other petroleum solvents would work like ethyl ether, which evaporates much more easily and is a better solvent, and something like gasoline, which has additives and does not evaporate as cleanly as naptha. If you can get petroleum ether from a chemical supplier, try it instead of naptha. A rule of thumb is that after making a solution with the nonpolar solvent, and after it dries, it should smell absolutely nothing at all like petroleum, or whatever solvent you used. If you use gasoline, you'll notice a strong gasoline smell, which means you're screwed. I know first hand from repeated experience that naptha works. Also, read the labels of whatever solvent you use. Make sure it contains no benzene. Benzene is the most evil carcinogen known, and even in trace amounts it can cause cancer. There is no safe amount of benzene. On the other hand benzene is everywhere, and if some chemical engineer points out to you that there is benzene in naptha even if it's not on the label keep in mind that there is an enormous amount of benzene in automobile exhaust. You're going to die anyway. If there is no mention of carcinogens or benzene on the label of the naptha, then there isn't enough such that you should not use it.
The finer details of this recipe I can give you another time, but I just wanted to give you some theory and a general idea of what the procedure is. I can give you some things I have from off the net pertaining to this.
Extracting LSA from HBWR
Concerning the extraction and purification of LSA from HBWR, The alkaloids are more polar than e.g. DMT or mescaline, and are probably water soluble to some extent. Thus, while a crude extraction can be performed with methanol, the next stage of purification may not be very good. Thus the general extraction method for alkaloids is quite possibly not applicable here. That is why I want to have a look at exactly what the original method was, although the journal seems obscure to say the least. Another day in the Chem Abs section, I fear.
Re: LSA
Yup. In a nutshell, you mix the HWBR powder in a nonpolar solvent, keep the resultant gunk(I) and throw away the solution. Then dissolve the gunk(I) into a polar solvent, throw away the new gunk(II) and evaporate the solution. The final gunk (III) that comes out of the solution has LSA in it.
Code:
gunk(I) = gunk(II) + gunk(III)
gunk(III) is the good stuff
gunk(II) is not
gunk(I+III) are therefore kept
nonpolar solvent = petroleum ether
polar solvent = alcohol (methanol is better, but is a smidgin poisonous, so you've got to be damn sure its all evaporated).
For the layman: nonpolar solvent also = Zippo lighter fluid
DXM HBr Extraction and Freebasing Method
Spoiler for Ikonoclasts acid/base/syphon filter extraction/freebase method:Originally Posted by Ikonoclast
This is another one i have done countless times. This is your basic acid/base/syphon filter extraction, you should have no problem doing it. So if you are sick of taking 60 robogels or drinking pints of syrup read up. It's rather easy, just have to follow the directions.
Supplies needed:
-Cough sizzurup containing ONLY DXM. psuphedrine and the like will be uneffect by this exctration and those are dangerous to consume, so just get robomax and you wil be fine.
-Naptha. This can be found in Rosonal lighter fluid, or you may find that your hardware store sells pure naptha. Ask for it, make sure whatever you get has ONLY naptha in it.
-NON sudsy Ammonia. You can pick up a half gallon of generic Safeway brand for under a dollar. Make sure it is clear and says "non-sudsy" on it. Sudsy Ammonia contains things that will fuxx0r up the extraction.
-Gallon size ziplok bags. These are going to be your makeshift syphon filter.
-(for freebase)Pyrex cookwear, like the casarol dish your mother uses. Or equivelent. It needs to be a long wide dish.
-(for non freebase)Concentrated Lemon juice. Your local supermarket should have their own brand for pretty cheap.
-(for freebase)Patience. Seriously.
Step 1:
Take all of the cough syrup you have, and pour it in the ziplok bag. Fill each empty bottle with as much ammonia as there was cough syrup (thus you get a 1:1 ratio roughly), and shake the bottles well so you get every last drop of syrup. Ammonia is a strong smelling chemical, so do this in a room where you can open a window. Add the amonia to the ziplok bag, seal the bag, and shake the bag for a good 5 minutes. The more you shake, the more the ammonia will bond with all the preservatives and dyes in cough syrup.
Step 2:
Now add roughly 1/4 naptha to the ammonia/syrup. If you are doing the freebase method (which we will get to later on), adding too much naptha will consume more time. Adding too little and DXM is wasted. So if you have 4 bottles of syrup, add one full bottle of lighter fluid. Again, shake for at least 5 minutes. Preferably more. The more the naptha touches the DXM, the more the DXM will bond with the naptha. After shaking, hang the bag by the top corrner (left or right doesn't matter) and let sit. After about 5 minutes you will start to see layers. This is the principal of an acid/base extraction, that bases will sit on top of acids. You should see your naptha layer (clear) on the top, and your ammonia/crap layer (red) on the bottom. Let this sit for at least 15 minutes so everything seperates as best it can.
Step 3:
Now it's time to seperate the layers using your syphon filter. because the ammonia/crap layer is on the bottom, we can snip a small hole in the bottom corner of the bag and let all that nasty red stuff drain slowly into an empty milk jug or something sealable and throw it away. You need to have a second Ziplok bag ready because you are going to drain the naptha/DXM layer into a new bag, one that never had ammonia in it. Now that you have your clear naptha/DXM in a new bag or should at this point) you can decide on weather to freebase of not. Because naptha is a light isomer, it will evaporate rather quickly. The DXM is already freebased because the ammonia bonded with the hydrombromide. This next part is confusing chemistry stuff, but bear with it anyway. The DXM bonded with the naptha, which made is want to float to the top, but the HBr bonded with the ammonia which made it want to sink to the bottom. So basically we just ripped apart the DXM from the HBr. Neat huh? But the DXM is not consumable yet, because naptha is bad for you. So you can either let the naptha evaporrate in the pyrex dish, and get freebase DXM that will crstalize after a day or so, or combine the DXM with another acid and have DXM at the ready to drop within 30 minutes. If you are freebasing keep reading, if you aren't move on to step 4. place the DXM in the pyrex dish and place it on a light heat source. Light meaning warm like the top of your computer monitor. Too hot and the naptha will ignite and we don't want this, not hot enough and it will take forever to evaporate. You will be left with a white crystaline residue that is pure freebase DXM in the end. Scrape it out, pack it into a capsule, and down the hatch. DO NOT SMOKE THIS. DXM TURNS INTO NITRIC OXIDE UNDER A FLAME, NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH NITROUS OXIDE, NITRIC OXIDE IS A DEADLY POISONOUS GAS THAT CAN KILL.
Step 4:
Now you will need your lemon juice if you are not freebasing the DXM. Lemon combined with DXM will make DXM Citrus. DXM Citrus is alot cleaner trip than DXM HBr. Add as much lemon as you have naptha/DXM to the ziploc bad, and shake again. Because you are trying to get the DXM to break the bond with the naptha, this will require alot of shaking, again. I know it's annoying but the end result is worth it, because you haven't tripped on DXM properly until you have tripped on DXM Citrus. Let sit again, and you will start seeing layers seperate. These will be harder to see. There will be a light yellow layer on top (bonded lemon and lighet fluid) and a darker yellow layer on bottom (bonded lemon and DXM). The longer you let this sit, the more DXM will bond to the lemon juice. After at least 15 minutes, use the syphon filter method I just taught you to secure the bottom layer in a sauepan. Flush the top layer.
Step 5:
We are going to lightly simmer (not boil, intense heat breaks the DXM cchemical down) the lemon/DXM wixture on the stove to make sure all the lighter fluid is gone. If you start to see bubbly white stuff on the top, don't worry this is only naptha boiling off, because naptha has a very low boiling point. Do not leave this unattended. After no more white bubbly stuff is on the top, the mixture is ready for consumption. This taste like chemical ass, to the point where mixing it in jiuce won't help just make it so you have alot of juice that tastes like ass. Your best bet is to pinch your nose and gulp it down. It should be no more than a few onces anymore, and is not nearly as thick as syrup so it may taste bad but won't make you sick to your stomach like syrup will.
And that's all there is to it! If you have any questions PM or AIM me at the SN in my sig.
Enjoy and be safe!
General Alkaloid Extraction method (works for DMT from Mimosa Hostillis and Mescaline from Cacti, as well as some others)
Spoiler for Adapt as needed:The method I use is a general one - I copied it from one used by some scientists to extract mescaline from peyote, but I have since seen close variations used on many plants. This procedure is followed whenever a plant is studied for its alkaloids.
A few ingredients and bits of equipment are necessary. I am a chemist, and have my own chemistry set. I have considered manufacture, but I find that there are enough interesting things to do just extracting natural compounds, which is much easier, indeed, possible in the home.
You will need:
A few flasks, glass containers, etc. of suitable sizes, depending on how large a volume you are playing with.
A separating funnel is almost essential - this could be tricky to get without a little effort. If you don't know, it is an inverted conical flask with a hole at the top to pour stuff in, and a tap at the bottom to let the stuff out accurately. It is used for separating immiscible layers.
A vacuum filtration apparatus would be very useful; I did have a bodgy one rigged up myself, but it was always difficult to use. Some kind of still, though, is pretty important to have, although conceivably for a once off you could get by without it, if you don't mind breathing in a lot of solvent.
As far as a still goes it is to recover solvent, and leave goodness as a residue at the bottom. I use a bit of quickfit I nicked: a round bottom flask, short column, thermometer on top, and a small condenser... takes forever, but don't expect to follow this procedure in anything under a day.
Other bits and pieces:
A filtre of some sort is a necessity; preferably a good one, with a vacuum pump if you are filtring gluggy stuff (cactus is the worst, sticky goo, e.g., other things like seeds and bark are better). People have been known to use such devices as coffee filtres, t-shirts, tins with holes in the bottom (as a filtre press) and so on. Whatever you can scrounge. A lab buchner funnel, sidearm flask, and venturi pump are ideal. All this stuff is standard in any chemical lab, regardless of discipline.
Chemicals necessary:
The paydirt (obviously)
Some solvents: methanol (lots), and a non polar solvent. Some people use ether - this is dangerous and doesn't dissolve everything. Your best bet is probably something chlorinated - I use dichloromethane, although chloroform will do (don't breath too much - it is fun at first, but ends up making you feel ill). Drycleaning fluid... petrol... I don't know what you have access to. Dichloromethane is good because it is non-toxic, volatile, and a good solvent. It has a major drawback: separation is often very difficult once you have placed your gluggy plant muck in there. The shot is to use large quantities of everything, and be patient.
You will also need an acid (Hydrogen chloride is good)
and a base/alkali (Sodium hydroxide is good - that way, if you stuff up, you end up synthesizing salt instead of something nasty.)
Also useful: acid/base indicator paper, boiling chips (porcelain grains) and activated charcoal - see local chemist.
The idea is this: Most fun compounds (the only exception is maybe THC, and alcohol if you count that) are basic - they contain nitrogen. So: in general, if you react them with hydrochloric acid, they form a water soluble chloride. If you react them with dilute base in the aqueous phase, they go back to being a base, which is insoluble in water, but soluble in organic non-polar solvents (like CH2Cl2). So, the theory is, that only a base will go from water to solvent and back to water etc. when changed from acidic to basic and back to acidic. This gives you a way of removing all the other crap which is not alkaloid from a sample. That is the theory. When I do this, if I can get down to some brown or green sludge that I can throw down or smoke, I am happy with a good days work. Ideally, you should end up with lovely white crystals, but I think that would require a lot of time and effort, and indeed a considerable loss of product in the process.
Procedure:
Get your stuff.
Dry it as much as possible - this makes life easier later on. You will never get all the water out, but too bad.
Chop it up as fine as possible: a blender comes in handy. You may wish to chop then dry. A word of caution: try to avoid exposing your stuff to excessive heat. I dry in low heat oven. Heat and air destroy good compounds from upwards of 100 degs C. All this bit will depend on exactly what you are extracting.
Once it is finely divided - powdered if possible, put it in a big container, and cover it with methanol. Alternatives to methanol here are ethanol (not as good) and acetone (good solvent - rips the crap out of anything, but is more reactive - can react with your actives).
Now, depending on what your stuff is, you have to let the methanol have time to remove it all. This is best done by leaving in a quiet warm place for a few days, even up to a week, and shaking it occasionally so it is mixed. Some papers recommend solvent extraction (soxhlet apparatus) and refluxing at the boiling point of the methanol (80 degs or so - I can't remember). I usually just rely on time to get the good stuff out. When you are ready (early in the morning), filtre the muck, to give you methanol+dissolved brown gunk, and a residue soaked with methanol. The residue still contains a lot of good stuff, so soak again for an hour, and repeat, and do a third time if you are feeling generous (3 is the magic number in extraction work).
When you are done, there is another thing you can do finally, if desired: depending on what your stuff is, mix it up with dilute hydrochloric acid, 1M is appropriate. let stand for an hour, then filtre (this may be very difficult) That will get the last of the alkaloids out of the substrate.
You now have a methanol-plant stuff mixture, and a dilute HCL-plant stuff mixture, if you bothered to do that part.
Evaporate the methanol, to leave a small amount of goo. This will contain water, a bit of methanol, and all kinds of resins and muck, and if you are lucky, the alkaloids.
If a very quick and crude extraction was all that was desired, then after stripping the last of the methanol with vacuum if possible, this residue could be smoked, eaten or whathaveyou. I leave that to your discretion. However, if a cleaner product is desired, the double layer extraction will need to be performed.
Combine the evaporated methanol gunge with the hydrochloric acid filtrate if you have any. If you don't then mix the methanol stuff with an excess of dilute (1M) HCl. Feel free to filtre again at this point. Anything of marginal solubility here is no good to you. Get the stuff as clean as possible. Boiling with activated charcoal is another useful trick for removing gunge. Just boil it up, and filter off the charcoal for a cleaner brew.
You should now have an acid aqueous solution of alkaloids and water solubles from the plant.
Take your acidic solution, and basify. This is done by mixing in dilute sodium hydroxide (I use up to 5M to save on total volume. Be careful with concentrated NaOH - apart from eating skin, it eats alkaloids) As you mix in the NaOH, you will see swirls of white precipitate form and redissolve. Continue until the white swirls stay, and until the solution is quite cloudy. Indicator paper is necessary to see that the solution is basic. If you can't get indicator paper, you can make an indicator by boiling up some purple flowers. The dyes in most flowers go bright red in acid, and green in strong alkali. Just a drop of dye and a drop of mixture should tell you what is acid or base.
The white precipitate is the alkaloids. The more the better.
Next, add equal volume of non-polar solvent (dichloromethane) to the mix. Place in separating funnel, and shake. Separate. This may be very difficult or slow. Adding more solvent, more basic water, etc. may help. Adding lots of salt to the water layer will help break an emulsion. Ideally you want to do this step 3 times - to extract as much as possible from the water layer into the organic. I find this part very difficult, and you have to accept that you will lose quite a lot of material here. It is, however probably easier with some plants that others: cactus is very difficult, barks and seeds would be easier. Use plenty of salt, and agitate to separate.
When you have finished extraction, chuck the basic water layer. The solvent layer is kept, and can be backwashed with salty water for a cleaner mixture.
The solvent can now be dried, (using salt or some dry powder, the filtred) (I don't usually bother with this - the old hairdryer at the end can remove some last solvent and water) then strip the solvent in a vacuum to get your final product - some kind of syrup could be expected. This is super concentrated, but may only be half the strength of the original. e.g. put in enough for 10 doses of morning glory seeds, get back 5 doses or more of concentrated alkaloids.
If it is desired to take the process still further, you can do the obvious thing - mix your solvent layer with dilute acid again and extract back into water. Acid layer could be evaporated under vacuum to give salts of alkaloids. Alternatively, if the organic layer were scrupulously dry, bases could be salted out with some organic acid - a tartrate, oxalate could be formed. I have never bothered with such things - you would need a lot of pure extract to be bothered. The acid-base extraction process can be continued as many times as is desired.
If a truly pure product is desired, the only way to go from here is chromatography. I have never used this at home, and wouldn't think it was worth the trouble, but there will be papers available on what was used for a particular extraction case.
THC extraction for Hash Oil
Spoiler for For a scentless Has Oil:This article will describe, in detail, a technique of extracting the essential oils from hemp. The final product will be a dark, oily liquid that contains 70+% pure THC. The following steps require nothing more than simple, easy to find materials and a little time.
Advantages of THC oil:
No hot, harsh smoke to irritate your lungs
No tar to stain your teeth and fingers
Very little smell
5 times as much THC in bloodstream
Get 5 times as many "trips" per $$$ as compared to joint/bong smoking
No carcinogens to give you cancer
The list goes on and on but let's get down to business...
Materials you'll need for extraction:
A glass jar with a watertight lid (widemouth Mason jars work great)
A metal measuring cup with handle (2 cup capacity recommended)
Bottle of 190 proof grain alcohol (Everclear brand is perfect)
Any quantity of pot, any strength (from a gram up to a few ounces)
A 1' X 1' piece of sturdy cloth (t-shirt material works fine)
An eye-dropper bottle (contact lens type bottles work great)
The use of an ELECTRIC stove and its overhead fan
Step 1
You'll need to chop up your weed and pick apart the buds until it looks like grass clippings. Remove any seeds, they have their own oils which we don't want. Dump the powdered pot into the mason jar and pour in just enough grain alcohol so the weed particles float freely in the mixture. Place the lid securely on the jar and shake a few times.
Let this mixture sit for a few hours, shaking it every once in a while. The alcohol should have turned a dark green color and when shaken should form colorful, oily bubbles on top.
Place the sturdy cloth over the metal container and press the cloth down to form a funnel. Carefully pour the contents of the mason jar onto the cloth which is in the metal cup. Make sure to get most of the weed particles out of the jar. Gather up the edges of the cloth and squeeze the remaining liquid out of the lump of weed into the metal cup.
Step 1a
You should now have a quantity of dark green liquid in your metal measuring cup. It is possible to extract more THC oil from the remaining pot. I recommend performing Step 1 a second time immediately after completing it the first time. No sense throwing away the good stuff. Dump the pot from the cloth back into the mason jar and repeat step 1. You now have twice as much liquid in your metal cup upon repeating the first step.
Step 2
Be sure to use an electric stove in this step! (If you don't have one, read Step 2a)
Take the metal cup containing the green liquid over to the stove. Turn one of the electric eyes on LOW setting and place the metal cup on that burner. I highly suggest using the fan over the stove to remove the alcohol vapors during this entire step. Watch the liquid closely. It should only boil slightly, never raise the burner temperature above MEDIUM LOW. We need the liquid to cook down until it's slightly thick. This may take some time but be patient.
Once the liquid starts to thicken and turn darker, remove it from the heat. Never let it get too thick or it'll be too difficult to work with. If you do accidentally make it too thick, just add a small quantity of the grain alcohol to the metal cup and swirl it around till it's thinner.
Let it cool down to room temperature inside the metal cup. It should be runny enough to be poured into the eye-dropper bottle easily. You now have your final product: THC oil. It's necessary to have some grain alcohol left in the resulting liquid so it's easy to work with. This will not affect the potency of the oil.
Step 2a
This part is for the people with gas stoves. Do not use a gas stove to cook down alcohol! The vapors will explode! You'll have to have patience to complete this step. To get a final product just put the metal container in a place where it won't be disturbed. The alcohol will have to evaporate on its own. If at all possible keep it in a slightly warm area with decent ventilation. It may take days.
Once it's evaporated test to see if it's too thick. If it is, pour a small amount of grain alcohol in the metal cup and mix. Pour the liquid into your eye-dropper bottle.
Smoking Instructions
(NOTE: When smoking this oil in any form, do not let it come into direct contact with a flame. That destroys much of the THC and defeats the purpose of this whole project.)
You have the oil in the eye-dropper bottle and you're ready to smoke some? Clean up your mess first. You don't want to have to explain why a rag of wet marijuana is lying on the kitchen table do you? Wash out the jar, the metal cup, and throw away the cloth. Throw away the weed too, it's useless. Use a water/alcohol mixture to wash out the jar and cup.
Materials you'll need for smoking:
A 5" X 5" piece of aluminum foil
A Bic pen tube (take out all the stuff until it's hollow)
A stationary flame source (a butane torch works best, but you can use a candle, lighter, etc.)
The THC oil in the eye-dropper bottle
Make a "spoon" out of the aluminum foil. This takes some practice but you'll get a design that works. Put 6-8 drops of the oil into the "spoon" and hold it about 4" over the flame. It should begin to boil slightly. Don't let it get too close to the flame just yet. It'll cook down and turn very dark brown and begin to make crackling sounds. Now you should lower the spoon so the THC is directly over the flame. The spoon is still face up, we're just really putting the heat to it. Hold the Bic pen tube about 1" above the dark brown area and inhale through the tube. You'll see a white smoke come up from the dark area, this is vaporized THC. Once you have a lungfull, remove the spoon from the flame. You'll feel the effects almost instantly. Exhale and place the spoon back over the flame and inhale again.
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